Catalog Workbox Access from Unified Navigation
Curriculum Strategy has created a faster and more effective way to access and work within the catalog workbox. These changes are available through your Unified Navigation dashboard.
Previous Catalog Workbox Access
This was the only available catalog workbox experience, found within your content management system.
While the functionality of the workbox helps review, approve, and decline catalog changes, access to the workbox could be faster, and movement within the workbox can be frustrating.
Upgraded Experience
With this feature release, the catalog workbox is accessible from Unified Navigation, offering a better user experience and improved performance.
Located via the Catalog link in the left-hand navigation of the Unified Navigation dashboard, the workbox is displayed right from the Catalog screen, with the same functionality but an improved experience. For users familiar with our Curriculum Management module, the workbox experience is similar to the My Items workbox in Curriculum Management.
How it Works
Select the Catalog link from the left-hand navigation.
*Note: previously this link launched the Catalog Editor. You can now do that from the new Catalog Workbox screen with the "Launch Catalog Editor" button in the top left hand corner.
The Workflow dropdown will default to Draft. From this drop-down, select the Workflow state you’d like to review.
To review an item change from within the content editor, select the linked item from the Name column. You can also select the icon from the last column for the same action.
To compare the proposed changes to the existing item, select the comparison icon from the last column. The compare view will open in a new window, with an easy-to-read interface.
To preview how the changes will appear on the live catalog site, select the Preview icon.
The item path is also available so you can easily see which item is proposing a change.
If an email needs to be sent to the initial user who proposed a change, select the email icon from the last column to launch the email.
After reviewing the changes, select the item that should be moved through the workflow. You can select more than one item if they are all moving to the same workflow state.
By selecting the “Select Workflow Action” drop-down, the options available to move the items will display. Select the next workflow state (which may be a final approval.)
A pop-up message will confirm the changes, and the items will then be moved.
Troubleshooting an error when promoting items through the workflow:
If an error is displayed at the bottom of the workflow dashboard when items are promoted through the workflow, the issue is most likely that an item being promoted/approved is a different version than the most recent version.
Versions of catalog items in the workflow are not displayed independently on the new dashboard so to resolve this error, navigate to the previous workflow dashboard within Sitecore via the "Launch Catalog Editor" button to approve past versions and clear them from the workflow.
Going forward, for best practice, only ever have the most recent version of a catalog item in the workflow. All previous versions should be approved before a new draft is created, and if you receive an error when approving from the new catalog workflow dashboard, most likely there is more than one. When the most recent version of a catalog item is in an approved state, the new workflow dashboard does not differentiate between previous versions that might be in-progress within the workflow and therefore displays an error when approval of a previous version in-progress is made. The dashboard is registering the item as already approved because it is checking only the most recent version of the item.
We are currently working on a way to resolve this in the near future, but in the meantime, access the previous workflow dashboard within Sitecore to review and approve the versions within when an error is displayed in the new dashboard.